


Day Twenty-Nine: Tessa & Will & Jem

by claryherondale



Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: 19th Century, Book 3: Clockwork Princess, Brotherly Love, England (Country), F/M, Fluff, Friendship/Love, London, Love, Love Triangles, M/M, Multi, No Smut, One Shot, Parabatai, Parabatai Bond, Parabatai Feels, Pre-Epilogue, Sad, Spoilers For Book 3: Clockwork Princess, True Love, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 05:52:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9109483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claryherondale/pseuds/claryherondale
Summary: Day 29 of My 31 Favorite ShipsA few days before the beginning of 1880, Tessa and Will are granted their first moment alone with Jem in over a year.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LizzyKitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzyKitty/gifts).



> Herongraystairs for life asdfghjkl
> 
> So, this is set post-Clockwork Princess, but pre-epilogue, as The Infernal Devices (aside from the epilogue of CP2) is set in 1878. This is just some fluff between the best love triangle that I have ever read about, which was really sad to write because they deserved better, but they also had a beautiful ending. 
> 
> I have so many TID feels that I can't even handle them so, most of the time, I just shove them all down inside me and pretend they don't exist :))))

Tessa looked up from the book in her hands, her eyes straying from the words she loved on pages she adored so she could see the only things she loved more in the world—her boys. She was trying so hard to act as though everything was normal. She and Will both were. They were forcing themselves to behave as though it was all the way it used to be. But it wasn’t. And it never would be again. 

Still, Tessa and Will were both happier than they had been in months, finally in Jem’s presence again but away from the Silent City. They got to be alone together. Tessa set her book down—she hadn’t really been reading it anyway; it was more just for the act of normalcy. All three of them were in the library of the London Institute, and as Tessa glanced out of the stain-glass windows, she saw dark gray skies and snowflakes falling gracefully.

The fire was burning, and it reminded her of the time she had crouched in front of it and burned her hand with a hot poker after telling Will that he was too late, that she was engaged to Jem.

Tessa glanced down at her left hand. Although she wasn’t fully a Shadowhunter, Will had still given her his Herondale ring in the days leading up to their marriage, which she paired with the pearl bracelet. Looking at Jem now, she felt the jade pendant of his engagement necklace against her chest, hidden away by the collar of her dress. She never took it off, and Will didn’t mind it. He encouraged her not to. She doubted that she would ever take it off again, although she would not tell Jem that.

Will was leaning against one of the tables in the library, and Jem was standing beside him. Tessa was sitting a couch against the wall, and they were all quiet, pretending that nothing had changed. Jem didn’t speak. She had the feeling that he wouldn’t, because he couldn’t speak the way he used to—if he were to talk to them, it would be a whisper across their minds. He had taken a vow of silence. Will’s black hair slanted over his pale forehead, his eyes shining and blue. Jem was wearing his Silent Brother robes, dark, stiff fabric that encompassed him.

Tessa watched Will for a moment. He kept unconsciously reaching up and touching the now-powerless parabatai rune on his chest. She couldn’t take it anymore. This was the first time in over a year that they had gotten to be completely alone with Jem. Charlotte had pulled some strings with her position as head of the Institute, under the guise that Charlotte and Henry’s young son, Charles Fairchild, was ill and that Charlotte would only have him tended to by Jem in the Institute. It was her Christmas present to Will and Tessa. They would only get a couple of hours alone, but Charlotte had ensured they would be uninterrupted. They wouldn’t be able to thank her enough.

Tessa carefully got up off of the couch, and both Will and Jem looked at her as she walked toward the door to the library and locked it.

Will raised his eyebrows at her. “Tess, I hope this isn’t your way of suggesting a threesome. You know that I wouldn’t mind it so long as it was with Jem, but I don’t think the Brotherhood would be too happy with it, and I don’t want to be so disgraced that I won’t get my bones put in the Silent City just for an hour of fun. It would be good, but not—”

“Will, stop,” Tessa said, but she was smiling. 

She walked back over to them and stopped in front of Jem. Very carefully, she took his hands. The sleeves of his robe fell back, and when she felt and looked at his fingers, they were still his. They hadn’t changed. Jem was still in there, under the entrapment of Brother Zachariah that was needed to save his life.

Will stood completely up lithely, and Tessa let go of one of Jem’s hands so that Will could take it. Tessa gently lifted Jem’s palm and brushed her lips against his skin, no longer papery thin. He was far more powerful than either of them now, and the strength was apparent in his body, since he was no longer dying from the yin fen that kept him alive. Now that he was immortal, like her. And yet unlike her.

“Jem,” Tessa whispered softly, “can I remove your hood?”

He was still for a moment, but eventually, he nodded just once. Tessa reached up very slowly and gently pushed his hood back, revealing Jem’s hair and face. 

Although she had seen him like this before, it still made Tessa unbearably sad to see the emptiness in his eyes, black now that the yin fen was out of his system. He wasn’t mutilated like the rest of the Silent Brothers were—due to the circumstances under which he had become a Brother—but he still had runes carved into his cheeks. His hair was black, with a strip of silver marking the past that all three of them wanted back, so that they could all be together for more than just a couple of hours. But this was for the best. It was better than him being dead. Infinitely better. And Tessa still thought that Jem was beautiful. One of the most beautiful people she had ever laid eyes on. 

Tessa could see Jem looking at her, and she wondered if he saw her in the same way that he once did—if any part of him still loved her. If any part of him still loved Will. 

But no, certainly he did. She knew that. It was just in a different way, because Silent Brothers experienced emotions differently than they did. That didn’t make it any less true; it was simply—or not so simply—alternate. But it wasn’t only Jem: they had all changed. And that was okay; that was part of life. The problem, Tessa thought, was that maybe Jem had evolved for the final time, even though he would basically live forever.

Tessa smiled at Jem, her eyes budding with tears, and kissed where the rune was on his left cheek very lightly. 

She leaned into his ear and very gently whispered, “I love you, James Carstairs. Never forget that.”

He defied her expectations by speaking into her mind, and only hers: “I will see you on the bridge, Tessa. Every year until the end of time.”

Tessa gave him a smile and a soft nod, and then let go of him and moved back so that Will could have a moment with his parabatai. She watched as Will embraced Jem carefully at first, and then with everything he had. Will, too, kissed Jem’s cheek, and Tessa knew just by the tilt of Will’s head and the slight smile on his face that Jem spoke softly into his mind as well.

Before the three of them were ready—because they would have spent all of their days together, never once separating, if they could have—Charlotte knocked on the door and told them that it was time for Jem to go back. Tessa and Will went up into their bedroom and watched as Jem, with his hood pulled back over his head, walked out of the gates before the Institute and left them again. It never stopped hurting for either of them, but it also didn’t lessen their happiness together.

When Jem was out of sight, Tessa turned toward Will and smiled at him gently. She ran a light hand through his soft, dark hair and looked into his blue eyes that casted her out into the ocean. 

“Two more days, and it will be 1880. Can you believe it?” she asked.

Will grinned and said, “I honestly didn’t think I’d still be alive today. And I didn’t think Jem would be, either. But we are. All three of us made it, didn’t we?”

“In some form or another,” said Tessa. “Even Jessamine is still around—haunting us.”

“Without her, I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me as soon as I did. I would have held off another couple of years, and in that time, you would have gotten tired of waiting and moved on.”

“As if I could ever move on from you.”

Will beamed, a brilliant smile that Tessa never thought she would get to see, all of that time before he found out the curse wasn’t real. All that time before he fell in love with Tessa and realized that she could love him back without dying. All that time before he knew anyone other than the best person in his life, his favorite person in this world—a dying boy turned man, who might have not even lasted another year—loved him at all.

Tessa leaned into Will, their bodies pressed against one another, and kissed him soundly. There was so much powerful and angelic in the contact of their lips, the demon blood in Tessa’s veins warmed and made into strength instead of evil.

They parted slightly, just for a moment, and Tessa said, “Next year will be a good one.”

Will pulled Tessa into his arms, and they stood there as the silent snow fell on the world all around them and the 1879 prepared to end. Will brushed his lips against Tessa’s forehead, and they both embodied everything that the other thought they would never be fortunate enough to have.

“With hope at last.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hint for tomorrow's ship:  
> fancy bath soaps & expensive suits


End file.
